


On the Sexual Preferences of Majors in the Bajoran Militia

by captainraz



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/F, Implied Sexual Assault, Sexual Identity, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainraz/pseuds/captainraz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira knows what Dax is doing and she doesn't know how she feels about it. Or maybe she does know how she feels about it, but there's too much there to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Sexual Preferences of Majors in the Bajoran Militia

Kira knows what Dax is doing.

 

She's known since the first flirtatious flash of smile, the first seductive caress on her thigh. She also knows it's unprofessional and that she should put a stop to it. She could put a stop to it, if she wanted to. It would only take a word, just a single word, and this unprofessional distraction would end. If it were anyone else Kira would almost certainly have put them in the infirmary by now; Prophets know she's broken arms for less. She hasn't given Dax permission to give her these little looks and touches, except perhaps by the fact she hasn't broken her arm. But she doesn't say anything, because the truth is she doesn't know how she feels about it. Or maybe she does know how she feels about it, but there's too much there to deal with.

 

So she allows Dax this one indulgence. She gives permission to misbehave with the slight curl in the corner of her mouth when Dax says something scandalous. Kira  overcompensates for this breach of protocol by being hard on her in other ways. By demanding more from her science officer than she expects of anyone else. By being extra critical when she makes mistake. It's not helping her reputation for being difficult to get along with and a bitch to work for, but she doesn't care. It's worth it to maintain this fragile thing she shares with Dax and if Jadzia minds, she doesn't say anything to Kira.

 

Kira is kind of flattered that Dax is interested in her. Dax, who has three hundred and fifty years of experiences and memories of more partners than Kira wants to think about. She's interested in beaten and broken little Nerys, who has never had the luxury of being in love. Nerys, for whom the idea of having a sexual preference has been an extravagance she couldn’t afford. The Bajora have somehow gained a reputation for being stuffy and straight laced when it comes to sexuality. Something to do with their spirituality, Kira thinks, their "traditional values" insisting everyone shove themselves into certain boxes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even before the Occupation their people were more free to love who they wished than many Federation worlds had been. The Occupation only cemented those ideals. Because who gives a damn about sexuality when your world is being strip mined and your people enslaved? When you're reaching for the nearest person you can touch just to remind yourself that you're still alive, to prove to each other that you can still feel something? What does sexuality matter when there are Cardassians taking what they want from you and there's nothing you can do to stop them? Kira Nerys has been with men, women, people who are both and neither and has never once stopped to think whether she has a preference.

 

Until Dax.

 

She is sure that this is all just a bit of fun for Dax, who grew up in a world where relationships aren't forged in the heat of a battle. Where sexual orientation is a thing that mattered and you had a chance to work out. Where seduction is done for mutual pleasure and can take place over many weeks. Jadzia knows nothing of Kira's world, where couplings are short and sharp and as silent as possible, more distraction than anything else. Kira imagines that Jadzia's first time was something special, with someone she loved. Something that they planned together over weeks and worked up to, touch by touch.

 

Kira was fourteen when it happened for her. It was the night before the Gallitep raid and every single person in her resistance cell was too terrified to sleep. She could hear some of the adults going at it elsewhere in the camp, Lupaza in particular was always far too noisy about it, so she turned to boy lying next to her. He was only a few years older than her and just as scared as she was. They'd never even kissed before that night, barely even spoken to each other. But he was the person nearest to her and so he was the one she turned to. Neither of them had any idea what they were doing. Kira learned more about sex later, but he never got the chance. He died the next day at Gallitep. Her cell mates were there to comfort her as she cried out her grief over this boy with whom she had shared her pleasure for the first time. And as they did so she had found that most of them had a similar story to tell. They had all lost someone they had loved, however briefly they had loved them. Even so, Kira thought that she had been lucky, in a way. So many young Bajoran women experienced sex for the first time at the hands of a Cardassian soldier. At least Kira had had a choice.

 

That first time.

 

The brutal nature of her past sex life is one of the reasons Kira has allowed this thing with Dax to go on so long without giving any sign of where she wants it to go. Assuming she allows Dax to seduce her in the end, this would be the first time Kira has taken a lover since the Occupation ended. She's not entirely sure how to make love to someone in peacetime, without the threat of bombs falling on their heads mid coitus. Kira's not sure how to make love with someone for pleasure's sake, or how to be gentle and kind. Or how to love someone who isn’t Bajoran. She doesn't know any of these things because she's never had the chance to learn. She thinks she'd like to let Jadzia to show her.

 

She has no idea what Dax sees in her, in broken and beaten little Nerys, in a Bajoran woman who has no idea how to love. The only thing Kira knows that the attraction is mutual. Jadzia is a beautiful woman by half the galaxy's standards, and Kira is definitely interested in her. But Kira also finds herself intrigued by the slug that lives in her belly, the symbiont Dax. Kira knows that many people are a little intimidated by Dax, who has been alive so long and has been so many people. But Kira isn't intimidated in the slightest, because so has she. She knows what it is like to be many people, to wake up sometimes not knowing which one you are. She has always been Kira Nerys in her heart, but she has also been whatever the Occupation demanded of her. Sister, daughter, lover, friend, warrior, medic, servant, cleric. She has been all those people and more. She wonders which of those Dax wants her to be, and is terrified of the idea that all Dax wants is little Nerys. She hopes and prays that she can be enough.

 

Kira knows she's in this way over her head. She’s known that since the first time a whiff of Jadzia's perfume sent a thrill right through her. Since the first time Dax's smile made her stomach drop and the ride up to Ops started giving her butterflies as the Humans put it. Whatever attraction Dax feels for Kira is most certainly mutual. It is only Kira's considerable will that keeps her from doing something ridiculous and ill-advised. Such as throwing Dax across the Ops table while on duty. She has far too much self-control to give in to a thing like that. Kira Nerys has forced herself to keep walking on bleeding feet, to keep going even though she hadn't eaten for days. She has overcome her body's needs hundreds of times because other things mattered more. She can most certainly force it to go without sex a while longer. Even if every day she doesn't kiss Jadzia feels like torture.

 

Somewhere between shouting at the Provisional government and getting annoyed with Starfleet Kira finds time to wonder why she's holding back. Dax has made it clear she wants her, and Prophets know Kira wants Dax just as much in return. Maybe its her past that’s the issue. Or maybe she’s more bothered about the issue of defining her sexuality than she thought. Perhaps not having a word bothers her more than she thought.

 

Given time Kira might settle on a particular word to describe her sexuality. Prophets know the humans have lots of them to choose from, but for now she is content to let it be a fluid thing. Maybe one day she'll find she prefers men over women, or vice-versa. Or maybe she'll find she likes them both equally, or prefers people who are neither men nor women. For now she is content to let the words be undefined and her feelings be a fluid thing and simply follow them wherever they lead. If people ask (and they will, Starfleet officers as a rule are a nosey bunch) she will answer them in her own language. With a Bajoran word that translates roughly to "I have not yet decided".

 

One thing she has decided is that she does not and never will fit into the box the humans have labelled "heterosexual". Kira has had far too many stray thoughts about what lies beneath Dax's uniform for that label to ever apply. She's spent too much time with her mouth around a woman’s nipple to even want to claim that. In the end though the words don’t really matter because if Kira Nerys has a preference right now its Dax.

 

So Kira decides that the only thing she can do is allow herself to get caught. She will let Dax  have her way with her, intentionally lose this game they are playing because even in loss there will be victory. She will set aside the semantics of the thing and simply learn how to be with Dax. After half a lifetime of fighting and running Kira Nerys will finally learn how to love, and Dax will be the one to teach her. She will learn to stop listening for Cardassian patrols as she makes love, will learn how to be with someone beyond the next battle. In time, Kira will know peace, both within and without.

 

But first she must be caught, and there is also a lesson that. A lesson in fun.

 

Kira has never been seduced in her life, nor indeed has she seduced anyone in return. Lovemaking for Kira has always been preceded by the very crudest of propositions, or sometimes no words at all. Sometimes all it took was a desperate glance across the camp to know that you both needed the same thing. Kira is looking forward to glances of a different kind.

 

She wonders what it will be like to share knowing looks across the ops table. To remember the taste of her skin even as they discuss something dry like duty rosters. Kira thinks it will be fun to indulge in unprofessionalism of a different kind. She's used to going into battle with someone she's slept with, so she knows she can handle it. What she's not used to doing is arranging docking schedules and writing reports with someone she's slept with. Kira wonders if the monotony of her new life will lead her to blur the lines between business and pleasure. Then she realises the point is moot until one of them makes a move towards something more than just inappropriate flirting.

 

So, she vows to return Dax's flirtatious smiles tenfold. She'll get caught staring (on purpose) and touch Jadzia at every available opportunity. She'll endeavour top drive Dax as wild as she's been driving her. If Dax doesn't pin her to the wall of the turbolift and kiss her senseless at the end of her shift then she will have done something wrong. And if that's the case, she thinks she'll just have to be the one doing the pinning. She grins to herself in anticipation.

 

Yes, Kira knows exactly what she's doing.


End file.
